Tag Archives: trucking

hurricane helene, north carolina, I-40, storm, asheville, highway

“We’re Good People” – For Asheville

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On the evening of September 25th, 2024, I parked at one of my favourite truck stops, the Hot Spot in Inman, South Carolina. I had two aims: get rest and work out. I was ten minutes from my customer in Spartanburg and wanted to get there the next morning, get loaded and get out of the Carolinas. I knew a hurricane was coming and I wanted no part of it. I understood little about the imminent storm, aside from tidbits I read on Facebook links. I figured that as with the majority of storms, the forecasts rarely match the results. So, I’d learn about any devastation soon.

My evening began with a nap, as is typical for me, to slough off the effects of a long day. After waking and eating dinner, I looked on my phone at the Weather Network’s local forecast. It showed intermittent showers coming soon. As I began to stretch and walk outside my truck, light rain began falling. I grabbed my portable pop-up lamp, opened my trailer doors and pulled myself up onto its wooden floor. I started with pushups and jumping jacks and kept an eye on the rain, as I moved to the beat on my headphones. Continue reading →

composite photo of me and my broken arm, from the trucking injury

Suddenly Wrist-less: Anatomy of a Trucking Injury

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Wounded, on the job, far from Canada

Sometime in early December, 2023

If I didn’t mention it, you wouldn’t be privy to the slow typing and the banging of the cast against my laptop. You also wouldn’t know about my constantly tapping the wrong keys on the keyboard and needing to go back every few words and correct my mistakes. You wouldn’t be aware of my need to stop every ten minutes or so because keyboarding with a new cast on is stressful on my lower arm. Persisting through the discomfort results in stress for the entire arm. These things are regular occurrences for me now, as I sloppily navigate my laptop, with my three-week-old broken wrist. Until the last few days, I wasn’t able to do much at all, on the computer or off it.

I’ve only had one very minor workplace injury before. That fingertip laceration was easily repaired by a short trip to the local hospital’s emergency department and some light bandaging. I’ve never broken a bone, even in many years of playing baseball and in about a thousand karate classes, including during some aggressive sparring.

I’ve had childhood scrapes and bruises, but less than most boys my age. I’ve had a few good bruises from being hit by baseballs on various parts of my body. I’ve jammed toes and fingers from working out on the heavy bag. I’ve had severe bursitis in my shoulder, brought on by trying to be cool on the monkey bars in the water park as a 45-year-old. I’ve also had moderate knee discomfort from many hours of driving the truck non-stop. Physiotherapy and well-placed stretching helped overcome that.

Still, no broken bones.

It’s taken a freak situation for me to finally get my first one at the ripe age of 56. It happened on the job and out of the country, more than a full day’s drive away from home. It happened suddenly, in the early morning hours that I hate so much. Continue reading →

latta, south carolina, truck stop, swamp, snakes, gators, bears, boars

Swampy Southern Things

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“There could be gators in there,” said the short round trucker in overalls. “Probably three footers.”

“Oh yeah?” I exclaimed.

Both him and his friend nodded their heads in agreement. The three of us were standing a few short feet from the swampy muck at the back of the truck stop. We had just met after I returned from relieving myself behind my trailer.

I rounded the corner and there they were: two short, oval, middle-aged locals who appeared every bit a stereotype of a southern hillbilly. They were standing next to their flatbed tractor-trailers on this unseasonably warm September evening.

It’s my nature to just start talking. So, I did.

I joked about the possibilities of there being snakes in the swamp, an unruly mixture of disgusting pea green liquid, long grass, garbage and mud. They seemed to be sizing me up for a few short seconds.

The talkative one then pulled out his phone and showed me snapshots of a skinned and mounted python that he’d killed with his shotgun in a town to the nearby south. He mentioned some specific detail about the gun. It meant nothing to me. I tried to look impressed.

Soon came the revelation about gators. The next photo was of a wild boar. They both assured me it was possible to see such a monstrous creature here in the dead of the night. Continue reading →

Evonik Goldschmidt, Hopewell Virginia

Rare Kindness In A World of Wrong Addresses

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Why would Evonik Goldschmidt ever stick out as a customer? It’s not like I was picking up anything of note there. As far as I knew, it was to be another faceless warehouse. This one was in a small town just south of Richmond, Virginia.

EG was my second last stop in a tightly packed four days of deliveries and pickups. So far, I had crammed a lot of driving and freight moving into about 58 hours.

I had begun the whirlwind trip with two deliveries in upper state New York. Then I headed southeast for several drop-offs in the Baltimore-Washington area. Much further south, I unloaded a single pallet in Virginia Beach before burning all the way down to Washington, North Carolina. One big pick up there and I was headed back north into Virginia.

If your head is spinning just thinking about doing all that mad scrambling in three days, you’re right on target.

By the time I hit Wednesday evening (June 15th – my daughter’s birthday, incidentally) I was feeling drained. More importantly, legal-wise, I was running out of service hours for the day and was trying feverishly to get parked, to stay ‘in compliance.’ Personally, I was anxious to get home to a weekend of outdoor concert fun.

EG shouldn’t have been tough to find because it’s a huge factory and warehouse complex with a clear sign, a long wide driveway and prominent gated entrance. It’s the kind of well-marked compound that a communications junkie like me loves.

My arrival ought to have been swift and seamless.

But this is the trucking world after all, and chaos often reigns supreme. So …

Wrong address. Continue reading →

Image of my comping shower bag

The Makeshift Shower Conundrum

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Picture the startling scene

It could be any truck stop or rest area, at about 11pm, on a warm late summer evening. A large and nearly naked man stands beneath his truck’s ajar passenger door. In his hand he holds a spout that trickles water from the droopy bag which hangs above. He moves it quickly over various parts of his head and body, trying for a decent initial soak. He turns the small lever on the plastic spout to the off position and reaches for his container of Nivea Men Shower Gel – the ‘Energy 24 Hour Fresh Effect’ kind – that sits at the edge of the open door. He squeezes a medium amount into one hand, puts the container down, pours some into the other hand, then speedily spreads it over his exposed body, legs and feet. Within a few minutes he reopens the spout and fastidiously washes away all the gel, making sure to leave no skin untreated. Once satisfied with his work, he looks around, twice, to confirm there’s no one watching. Why would they watch, he wonders. He clumsily pushes his free hand down into his quick-dry shorts and feverishly soaps then washes the parts that will forever be unknown to unfamiliar eyes. All before the water in the bag runs out. Continue reading →

Erich workout image 1

Because I Can – It’s That Simple

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The inner voice has a way of motivating

Decision time. It’s 9:30pm now and you thought you’d be stopped by 7:45. It was six degrees Celsius then and now it’s two degrees. You’re a little tired and you still have paperwork to do – not much but enough to make you a little more weary.

I get it. You’ve wanted to get outside to exercise a while ago, while you still felt vibrant and weren’t yawning. Now you have a choice to make: Do I still go for it despite the fact I’m nowhere near 100 percent? Should I do what I can, for as long as I can? Or do I pack it in and hope for a better day tomorrow?

You know that tomorrow might be just as busy and tiring as today was. Meanwhile, you have two hours before you need to sleep. You won’t sleep right now anyway. And you’ll feel much better if you get out there, start slowly and build momentum. You know it’s true. It happens every single damn time.

So, take a few minutes to relax and unwind from your long day of driving. Put those pain-in-the-ass dock workers out of your mind. Forget about all the drivers that cut you off, failed to use their turn signal and drove without their lights on.

Dust your dash if it will make you feel better for tomorrow. Vacuum the floor or your seat if you like. You know you like the cab super clean, and that’s okay. But consider putting the paperwork off until morning.

Done! See how easy that was. Now get your workout clothes out of your duffel bag and put them on. In the meantime, don’t psyche yourself out by thinking. Thinking means second-guessing your choice to get outside and do it. This isn’t about thinking. It’s about preparing and doing.
Continue reading →

When The ‘Going’ Gets Rough

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Highway 19, west virginia, hico, mount nebo, summersville, truck driver

An incredible view along Highway 19 in West Virginia – a place no one should ever want to soil.

I lament the very idea of ‘going’ here

There’s no denying the beauty of driving along Highway 19 in West Virginia. The green covered mountains and lush valleys make you forget – even if just briefly – how poor this state is and how hard life is for its people.

The vast hilly region is absolutely underappreciated. In fact, I’d heard remarkably little about the area until I started driving through it weekly as a long-haul truck driver. That was in the spring of 2017. Prior to then, I knew nothing of the spectacular New River Gorge and the mighty bridge that spans its width.

This entire part of the country is far too beautiful to soil. It’s a shame when you have no choice. Allow me to explain the messy details: Hundreds of trucks pass through these parts daily, en route to destinations where they deliver and pick up freight. It would make perfect sense that any route travelled so heavily by transport trucks would have ample facilities to support the volume. It doesn’t.

For cars, small trucks and motorcycles – plus most campers and even motor homes – it’s easy enough to pull over into any roadside restaurant or store parking lot, in Summersville, Fayetteville or Oak Hill, for instances. These drivers and passengers don’t have to ‘dirty’ the gorgeous environment. After all, no self-respecting human wants to leave behind a remnant of their visit. Continue reading →